spazzattack:Review Far Cry 2 man! It's a fun game with some minor flaws that you can harp()on like an angry sea fisherman going after a particularly large white whale.

Minor flaws? You should pop by the UBI forums and have a gander at the 50 page rant about everything that's wrong with it. There's even a 4 page rant about ONE thing that's wrong with it (all weapon ejection ports on the wrong side). And that's the minor problem.

I also found that the game was fairly derivative yet still good in its own right. Every game borrows from the games before it. I don't think that's a bad thing. I never heard anyone say "Gears of War is Resident Evil 4 with a cover system" just because it's an over the shoulder view, geez.

That said I'm not sure if the game ever intended for you to really care for his wife. Anyone who didn't have a hunch that she was dead all along wasn't paying attention to all the hints that were dropped. I think the real tragedy they wanted you to care about was how he was chasing after something that was only a figment of his imagination. To me, his silence almost gave him an added naivete that made his predicament pretty sad to me at times.

I also felt that the game did a good job of maintaining a scary atmosphere by establishing early on that the vents are a source of danger and then making pretty much any given area dangerous by having it full of vents. Not to mention the great sound design that often creates the illusion of threats that aren't there, the faint whispers that grow louder as you progress through the game, or the feeling of uneasiness you get in a vacuum due to enemies being silent.

My only real beef with the game was that the final boss in all of its grandiosity was a pushover (well actually it got me a few times on impossible difficulty). Oh, and they killed off the black guy for no reason at all pretty far into the game (kill him off early or make his death worthwhile).

Overall I thought the game was better than the sum of its parts and definitely worth the price.

It's not a survival horror, it's an action game with some atmospheric scares and such. If people just looked at it like that, 95 percent of complaints would be null and void. I truly think Resident Evil spoiled the gaming community, now if anything isn't up to the standards of a 10+ year old game, it's not worth the hype. Give it a rest, Dead Space is a good game.

I'm waiting for someone to design a game with no guns, no monsters, just walking around in a foggy mansion hearing some screaming sounds with ambient music. That's the only thing that would make survival horror fans happy.

MichaelH:I would have bet money that Yahtzee would have come down on the sheer ease of the game, though. Ammo is everywhere, so much so that you end up selling most of it, and you never once feel like you're in over your head or in a hopeless situation, which is kind of a key point for survival horror games.

Not that I'm saying to play on a harder difficulty to 'better' experience the game, but the main difference in the higher difficulties is quantity of ammo and how tough the enemies are. A lot of the crates that are green/unlocked are locked in higher difficulties, reducing the amount of ammo you have available to you, which, combined with tougher enemies make the game feel quite a bit different to play. It would seem like it would be more annoying then scary, but when you're low on ammo and actually have to run from an enemy rather then kill them all, things can get a bit interesting (similar to the fights with that one monster from the good doctor).

Oh yeah, the ammo in higher difficulties drops in smaller stacks as well I believe. So where you might get 8 rounds for the Plasma Cutter on easy, you'll get 6 on normal, etc.

Actually having to resort to shooting off the legs of an enemy just to slow him down, but unable or unwilling to spare the ammo to finish him off... Awesome. As opposed to the enemy dying right when you shoot off their legs and not being very intimidating at all. I played through on normal initially, and still managed to run low on ammo in a few spots, and looking back, those were probably some of the more fun moments where I had to get creative.

While the audio stabs can get a bit annoying when it happens with almost every monster, the audio in general I found to be amazing. The way it would build based on your movement through a room (you can walk through a room and have the music get more tense, movie style, but if you stop moving it kind of hovers around the same point, only to build as you walk forward again), or do false spikes/etc to mess with you were great. The pacing in general for the game, while reliant on surprises rather then scares, was really well done. I never felt bored with the pacing, and very rarely predicted where they would actually attack me, which is a very difficult task in a game this long and with so much ground to cover.

I have been hoping he would review this game. Hilarious review !! I actually like this game though, i though it was fun. but the game is super repetitive, extremely repetitive, like super repetitive. :P

Damnit! Of all the games in this new wave of games, why o'why did he have to choose the ONLY game who already months ago proclaimed itself to be repetetive, boring and without any personality... No, i haven't played Dead Space, but NO amount of trailers ive seen for it have made me EVER want to play it.So, did Yatzee sit down a few weeks ago, and said to himself... "Let us see... A game in space, with a nameless mute and masked character, looming around a gray, loomy and gritty space ship... Let us play it and see if they got it right THIS time..."? I bet my money they did NOT get it right this time either.

PS: But it was, like his other reviews, worth watching this review as well. And maybe next time he will review a game more fun to play, like say Far Cry 2 (which i KNOW he will slaughter, because this game has plenty of faults, but in the end it is quite entertaining) or Fallout 3 (i am pretty sure he will be pleasantly surprised to find very little wrong with this game) or Red Alert 3 (still to buggy to be reviewed at this date, though).

We didn't say Evil Genius was a crime simulator, we said that it was the closest thing to creating that game that already existed. You could, of course, build one....

:P to Mr. Grumpy.

I kind of feel bad for suggesting Evil Genius in the first place... wait no I don't. I'm sorry it wasn't a crime simulator, but it's really a spy movie simulator where you play as the villain who tries to kill the spies. It seems like the kind of game Yahtzee would love for the spectacle of it all, and then hate because the sheer amount of time it takes to build an evil empire.

Meh, I watched my bro play it. Creepy enough at first, but then if got dull. The Dryer Boss was kinda weird though.

Monstah alienz designs were about as creepy as I expected them to be. Ugly buggers.

Because Isaac didn't talk, I couldn't feel anything for him. If he did, his dialogue would have sucked and I would have enjoyed watching him die. Therefore, I'd rather have the mute and at least prtentd to like him.

[quote="gungravesan7" post="6.76063.889866"]Ok ppl... if you think it's a rip off why don't YOU come up with anything better?? I stil think it was a very good game and I couldn't care less if Yahtzee said it was lame - I stil liked it...quote]

Ok, let me put it in perspective for you...

Let's say that you make a good RPG. You think that its the best game ever and we should all be of the same opinion. Now, the person next to you hates a game unless it had 10 different kinds of aliens to blow up, and 20 different weapons to blow them up with. So that person makes a game to "show other game designers how it's done." That game has an ok story, and ok characters, and the shooting mechanics are some of the best of its generation. But you like RPG's, so you dont like the game at all.

Both of you think that you've created a masterpeice, and both of you think that the other game is absolutely horrible. The differing opinions between people make it impossible to make a game thats "better" than any other game, only to make a well-rounded game that has a good possibility of pleasing a wide variety of gamers.

Games also build off of each other. Programmers take what they think is good from a game, and use it in their own game. I think that the measure of quality for a game is how many elements of it are taken into another game, or even better, a game in a different genre. To have an element of a shooting game put into a puzzle game well would mean that the shooting game was a really good game, if elements of it could be used well in it's opposite genre. Many games use the engines of other games to make the quality rise, and i've never heard a complaint about too many things using the unreal engine.

I tend to agree mostly with Yahtzee's reviews but I have to say I disagree with this one. Dead Space to me, while yes, not exactly original, is heaps of fun and it really draws me in. But then again, I'm playing on the hardest difficulty setting where ammo is non existent dead is an 'Oh ***' away.

Hey, am I the only one that's bothered by Escapist's new tag on ZP? Sayeth they:

"Zero Punctuation is The Escapist's groundbreaking video review series starring Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw. Every Wednesday Zero Punctuation picks apart the games so you don't have to. Called "hilariously cutting ... first legitimate breakout hit from the gaming community in recent memory" by Boing Boing, see why gamers love it and developers fear it."

Errr guys...? I've been following Yahtzee since Fully Ramblomatic was his only gig, and I remember when he accepted your offer to produce for you. "Ocean full of bottles"? "Boat of cash bricks"? Yeah. Then.

Now, from what I understand, Croshaw has TRIPLED YOUR TRAFFIC, and has pretty much accounted for the lion's share of the site's popularity. I guess what I'm saying here is: don't you think the phrase "Zero Punctuation is Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw's groundbreaking video review series appearing on The Escapist?" would have been a bit more accurate? I mean, IGN would love to have him. So would 1up. I mean, hell, I'D love to have him. I'd make a site specifically for it. And PEOPLE WOULD COME.

Don't go patting yourselves on the back here too much Escapist. You discovered a goldmine. You lucked out. You did NOT "break ground" or "pioneer" a new series. Yahtzee did. You were simply the network lucky enough to pick it up early.

I don't know if this comment is a ban-able offense. I've been watching for years now and have never felt the need to comment before. I have no doubt that my "yeah, you're RIGHT!" would go as unheeded as the rest, so I'm unlikely to comment again. I don't much care. But I think it's arrogant to take credit for what made you. I mean, I don't walk around saying that ZenKai is the groundbreaking result of a coupling technique he introduced, starring his parents..

gungravesan7:Ok ppl... if you think it's a rip off why don't YOU come up with anything better?? I stil think it was a very good game and I couldn't care less if Yahtzee said it was lame - I stil liked it...

And still - it was a pretty good review this week - I wanted to see what Yahtzee had to say about the game and I did - that's what makes me happy :)

Did he hurt your wee little feelings? Yahtzee isn't some God-like being that can decide if a game is good or not, it's just his personal opinion (better vocalized than some, granted). If YOU liked the game, then good for you. Keep playing it. It's a review, not a sentence to Mt. Shittiness.

Didn't really enjoy this review. I guess it's because there weren't any valid points presented against the game that I haven't already heard a thousand times or even thought of myself (everything in it is a ripoff of everything else, not really scary, poor character development, blah blah blah).

BTW, the little leaper critters can be taken out quite easily by the Force Gun. A single blast is usually all it takes.

Excellent review. I was actually wondering whether or not to get this game, but I doubt I will now. I've heard from other places too that it gets very repetitive once you've seen everything, and besides I think I'd rather get Fallout 3 anyway.

ElArabDeMagnifico:This isn't really a "survival horror" - so I'm sure he came in with the wrong idea. This is more of a "3rd person horror shooter". Those who think the game is scary are just a bunch of people who jump at everything they see in the corner of their eye. Which is pretty good for this game.

No, not really, not in my case at any rate.

I don't think there's any point playing a game like deadspace if you aren't willing to allow yourself to feel fear and tension while playing it. So to do that, I turn off the lights, turn up the volume, and sit with my nose half a metre away from my 24" monitor so that I'm totally immersed, and then I dread every corridor, corner and door, and I jump and shout when the stabs occur - and I thoroughly enjoy the experience.

This doesn't mean I'm always jumping at shadows in the corner of my vision in real life (except when it's really late, and I've only just come out of a long session with one of these kind of games), it's just my way of getting the most out of playing horror games, and watching horror films too for that matter.

While I originally had some interest in this game, I suddenly had a thought.

Creepy spaceship full of mutant/zombie alien things? Oh no they're going to rip off System Shock 2 aren't they?

And yeah...they kinda did. I mean it's not really a true ripoff of anything given how much inspiration they took from everything, but there's still the System Shock-ian plot structure mixed with a silent protagonist that makes me go "ugh" and wonder if we can get one year this console generation that doesn't have somebody taking from System Shock 2. Seriously EA, while I don't actually want you to make System Shock 3, I also don't want you to say "durrs not interested" and then make something in the same vein.

As to the "spaceship decor" question. I think it's important to make an environment look like people lived in it before it all went to hell, and some people have said that Dead Space kind of misses that.

Dead Space is one of the most fun games I've played this year. Event Horizon is one of my all time favorite horror movies, and this game is a clever homage to that film (and The Thing, Aliens, etc.)

It's like a Tarantino film. You know he ripped off everything from a bunch of obscure 60's and 70's movies, but it is so obvious, you can't really call it a "rip off".

I have to disagree about the dingy space ship thing too, in case you didn't notice that all of the ships in this game have been infested with some kind of alien life form that killed or drove the entire crew insane. So it's only to be expected that the ship isn't exactly in the best condition. The Shoggoth tumble dryer bit got a laugh though.

Jeez Yahtzee, not every horror game can be Silent Hill, this game is actually very good as far as a space sci-fi horror game goes. It's much better than Doom 3 or most of the recent terrible attempts at a sci-fi horror game.

I'm not going to say that Yahtzee didn't get the game because honestly every single person takes something different away from the game; however, I feel like he was looking for the wrong things in Issac's occasional interactions with Nicole. They weren't intended to create empathy with the character, they were intended to make you question whether or not Issac was hallucinating. The idea that an unarmed girl could survive alone on the Ishimura when trained military professionals were slaughtered makes no sense, especially considering that she seems to just walk out of the room without worry whenever you see her. Issac's lack of emotional reaction is more of a sign that on some level he understood he was fooling himself. And he was characterized, just never verbally. If you read his notes on each objective, you got a clear sense of who he was as a person-- utilitarian, logical, and level-headed. Which is precisely why he survives when others die.

Also, his comments about the level design being cliche strikes me as odd. You can clearly see a practical theme to everything. And the gothic influences are astounding. You can see an amalgamation of old architecture and science fiction. I mean, a ship with influences clearly derived from flying buttresses? How is that not original?

Also, even though the story is cliche the religious overtones provided by the unitologist add a lot more depth than the standard sci-fi horror story contains. The obvious criticisms of accepting everything on blind faith and inadvertently worshiping the necromorphs as almost god-like because they have a relation to the marker, when in actuality the marker is meant to contain the necros? That's at least somewhat interesting on a story-telling level and it was certainly never explored in Alien/Aliens or Event Horizon.

And the game throws out a number of small treats for people who really paid attention. For instance, read the first number of each chapter. *SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS* Nicole is dead *END SPOILERS* Or the fact that in one of the middle chapters there is a sign scrawled with what looks to be a method of translating the alien symbols written on the walls throughout the entire game. And if you actually take the time to write down the method you can go back and translate every little bit of scrawling in every level. I doubt a generic game spewing machine would add that kind of detail.

I do have to say though, while Issac's silence may have had some interesting connotations on his interactions with Nicole, it certainly makes the opening scene seem incredibly awkward. The kinesis and stasis guns also feel incredibly shoehorned into the game and that the pacing never really hit its stride, but as a whole I'd have to say that the game is incredibly well done and does not feel generic in the least.

Final Note: Zero punctuation is the last review source I really trust, and I seem to have the exact same taste in games as Yahtzee because this is the FIRST review I have disagreed with.